Pollinators

Create a Pollinator Paradise

Supporting Pollinators in our Backyards and Gardens

A
landscape made up simply of mowed lawn and a couple of trees won't
provide the food and shelter that native bees and butterflies need to
thrive and reproduce. By making your landscape more complex, you can
turn your yard and garden into a welcoming habitat that will benefit our
native pollinators, and reward you many times over!

The Bee-Friendly Backyard

New York is home to over
450 native bee species. Along with the imported honeybee these native bees
pollinate agricultural crops and wildflowers. Bees aren’t the only pollinators.
Specialized flies, beetles, butterflies, birds and bats pollinate our flowering
plants too. But honeybees are familiar and many people have heard about
honeybee colony collapse disorder and its possible impacts on our food supply. In
2015, Governor Cuomo established an inter-agency task force on Pollinators, with
several goals, including pollinator
habitat enhancement. That’s where you come in.

Did you know that
your backyard can offer habitat and food for these pollinators? The choices you
make in planning and caring for your landscape can affect pollinator abundance
and species diversity. Just like us, these insects need shelter, food, and an environment
safe from harmful chemicals. Here are four steps you can take to make a
pollinator paradise.

1) Give
‘em Shelter: Most of our native bee species are solitary and do not
live in hives. Instead they nest in dead wood and in the soil. Create
structural refuge with things like brush piles, wood piles, and areas of
exposed, undisturbed soil. That doesn’t fit in with your landscape aesthetic,
you say? Then follow step two!

2) Make
it look deliberate: If a brush pile sounds messy, instead
create a decorative wattle fence of bent twigs. Wood pile out of place in your
landscape? Add a rustic arbor or bench made of natural, untreated wood. Even a
split rail fence can harbor these solitary bees. The key is to create structures
that persist through the season and to vary the types of structure so many
different species are attracted to the garden.

3) Dish up a variety of foods: Many flowers
provide nectar. But not all of our tiny solitary pollinators can handle the big
flowers. Vary the sizes and types of flowers you plant. Plants in the mint
family (both native and introduced) and plants in the “carrot” family, like
dill and golden alexanders, have many small flowers that produce lots of nectar.
They are attractive to look at and great for solitary bees and other beneficial
insects. (See the websites in the sidebar for more plant ideas.) When you
purchase plants that flower, be sure to ask if those plants have been
pre-treated with a pesticide.

4) Use
pesticide knowledgably: We understand that sometimes
pesticides are needed in a managed landscape. Pesticides include not only
insecticides but herbicides and fungicides as well, some of which are very
toxic to bees. If you choose to use a pesticide use it wisely. And remember
that pollinators are attracted to flowers: you don’t want to poison their food
source!

Avoid spraying plants that are
flowering, or if you must spray them, use a low-residual pesticide and spray
when bees are not active (early morning or late evening). Another option is to
remove the blooms during the treatment window.

Know the pest’s lifecycle so that you
are timing your treatment effectively.

Use the least toxic pesticide with the
shortest residual activity to get the job done. Pesticides that don’t stick
around allow pollinators and other beneficial insects to move back in quickly
and safely.

Be conscientious with pesticides that
have systemic or long residual action. If they are deemed necessary be sure to
remove blooms and understand that some systemic pesticides may be active in the
plant for several years.

We encourage you to
make your backyard a pollinator paradise. Let your neighbors know what you are
up to. Announce your commitment with a sign from one of many bee-friendly
organizations (see sidebar). Together our backyards, public gardens and parks
offer the possibility for rich and diverse pollinator habitats. Make yours a
bee-friendly backyard!

Become Part of NNY's Pollinator Pathway!

Many pollinators are in decline due to habitat loss, improper
pesticide use, disease, and climate change. The Pollinator Pathway is a
series of gardens with native plant species that form a distinctive vegetative
path within an urban landscape that provides habitat for pollinators, while
also reducing the susceptibility of the urban landscape to the introduction of
invasive species.

You can become part of this citizen science project right in
your own backyard!

Map your gardens on Yardmap and sign on to the NNY Pollinator Pathway
Group